


How to Breathe - ML One-Shot/Reverse Crush/Adrien Knows

by lolfanficihavedescendedtothis



Series: How to be a Superhero [3]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Also on Tumblr, F/M, Fluff, HOLY CRAP AUSTRALET789 REBLOGGED THIS ON TUMBLR, LadyNoir - Freeform, ML Fluff, ML Reveal Fic, MY PHONE IS LITERALLY BLOWING UP WITH NOTIFICATIONS, Marichat, One-Shot, Reveal Fic, Reverse Crush AU, SO FLUFFY, adrienette - Freeform, adrienknows, cuteness, ladrien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 20:07:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14922011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolfanficihavedescendedtothis/pseuds/lolfanficihavedescendedtothis
Summary: This is just a fluffy drabble I did about the reverse crush au because I think Adrien and Marinette would be BEST FRIENDS if Marinette wasn't a stuttering mess around him and chat would be 100% confused about why Ladybug is so uncomfortable with him.--"You really love her, don’t you?”Her voice cracked. Chat nodded. “I do.”A thick moment of silence hovered between them.“You saved her once.”Ladybug glanced back at him. Her face was unreadable. “Is she a fan?”Chat smiled at his partner. “The biggest.” Chat leaned towards Ladybug with a conspiratorial smile. “I think she likes you more than me.”





	How to Breathe - ML One-Shot/Reverse Crush/Adrien Knows

 

 

Adrien was not prepared to talk to her.

He talked to her everyday, but he still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that Marinette - the girl who sat behind him in class with a mind of her own and an iron will - was the girl who had been a stuttering mess around him for an entire year.

Well, he could see it. He knew Ladybug totally kicked ass once she stopped thinking too hard about what she was doing, but she  _laughed at his jokes_. And Marinette? She just shoved him and rolled her eyes. There were things about their personalities - her personality - that he could reconcile. Their ability - her ability (God, that was going to take getting used to) to stand up for herself. How wickedly smart she was. Their laughter was identical, too, now that he thought about it.

Adrien sat on the Eiffel Tower, transformed, and wondered if she had any idea that Adrien - her best friend - was also her partner in (stopping) crime.

Ladybug appeared out of nowhere, a red flash in a sea of the pastel tones that surrounded them. She was silent as she dropped down next to Chat Noir, her gaze dancing in between him and the Parisian skyline. “You look tired,” she said after a moment.

_No stuttering._

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Fine,” Chat mumbled. “Just… thinking.”

“‘bout what?” She drew her knees up to her chest, frowning.

A smile curled one side of his mouth. “It’s a secret.”

“Isn’t everything?”

Chat rumbled out a laugh. “Seems like it.”

“Is it… a secret you can tell me about in extremely vague terms?”

He wondered how she knew so innately that he desperately needed to talk to someone about his predicament. But how could he tell her about  _her_  without giving away that he knew who she was? “Purrhaps.”

Ladybug giggled softly as he finally turned his head to peer at her, his eyes glowing in the darkness. Her smile faded after a moment. “Is it a girl?”

Chat looked away, smile growing on his face.

“It’s a girl,” she confirmed, not needing him to say anything. She hovered in silence for a moment. “I… c-can you tell me about her?”

“There are dozens of different things I could tell you about her,” Chat murmured. “But I get the feeling you might realize who she is. And by extension, me.”

“I’ll try not to think too hard about it.”

Chat released a huff of a chuckle. “I could tell you about the way she sticks her tongue out when she’s focused, or how she laughs when she’s nervous, or how she turns into a beautiful, raging goddess when she’s angry. Or I could tell you about how she always sniffs her food before eating it, or about the way she ties her hair up when she’s working in this certain way. Maybe I could talk about the way her smile lights up an entire room, and maybe that’s stupidly cliche, but I’m serious when I say that she brightens everyone around her.”

When he glanced towards Ladybug again, she was staring down at the concrete far below them.

“But she’s not perfect,” he whispered. Something felt oddly intimate about their setting, even with over a foot of space between them. “She lies sometimes, even if it’s for the good of all of us. And she’s stubborn as all hell. She gets jealous a little too easily, and doesn’t always wait for explanation before jumping to conclusion.“

She still didn’t know. He could tell. She had no idea that the girl he was describing - the girl who kept surprising him, the girl who loved her city and her friends and her family with a devoted passion he could only respect - was the one sitting next to him, not some faceless entity Ladybug would never see.

"But maybe her flaws are what make the rest of her so amazing.”

“You really love her, don’t you?”

Her voice cracked. Chat nodded. “I do.”

A thick moment of silence hovered between them.

“You saved her once.”

Ladybug glanced back at him. Her face was unreadable.

“Is she a fan?”

Chat smiled at his partner. He didn’t see Ladybug a lot, even during patrol. Usually she stuttered over her greeting and darted away as quickly as possible.

“The biggest.” Chat leaned towards Ladybug with a conspiratorial smile. “I think she likes you more than me.”

Ladybug couldn’t stop her smile. “Don’t tell me your lover is Chloé Bourgeois.”

Chat snorted. “Nope. Not Chloé.”

“Good.” Ladybug relaxed.

Chat knew the answer already - especially since Ladybug was Marinette - but he still asked, “What’s wrong with Chloé Bourgeois?”

Ladybug turned to stare at him incredulously. “She causes half of the Akumas we have to fight! More than half!”

“Good point, m'lady.” Chat exhaled and let his feet swing in the air below him. “But no. She’s not Chloé Bourgeois.”

“Who is she, then?”

“What happened to the whole ’ _our identities must remain secret’_ thing?”

Ladybug shot him a sideways glance. “You don’t have to answer.”

“I can, though?”

“I might shout at you.”

“‘Cause I’ll give myself away or 'cause then you’ll have to see her without saying anything about how the great Chat Noir has a crush on her?”

“Both.”

“Good to know.”

A flicker of silence.

“Just for future reference, if I did tell you, would you be mad at me?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

Ladybug sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Would you be mad at me if, hypothetically, I knew who you were and didn’t tell you?”

He watched as Ladybug’s entire form tensed beside him. “Hypothetically?”

“Of course.”

She didn’t look towards him. “I… don’t know. No. No, I wouldn’t be mad.”

Chat could have cut the silence between them with a knife.

“I would want to know how you figured it out, though.”

“Well, in that hypothetical situation. I might have had the pleasure of getting to see you in school on a normal basis and would - hypothetically - have realized how similar your secret identity and your superhero persona look. And how you seem to disappear only for Ladybug to appear.”

“So, in this purely hypothetical situation, we go to the same school?”

“We’re even in the same class.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat as he watched her. His gaze was searing into the side of her face, branding her in a way she couldn’t bring herself to describe. “Oh.”

“Not only that, but we’re friends.”

All of Paris seemed to go to still.

“Best friends.”

Chat didn’t dare move as she slowly turned her gaze towards him, her eyes locking on his. Her mouth opened for a moment, then closed abruptly, and she snapped her gaze away, eyes significantly wider than before.

“Hypothetically, of course,” Chat reminded her, even though both of them knew that this hypothetical situation was a reality.

A very current reality that both of them were struggling to absorb.

Ladybug’s fingers curled around the metal beam they were sitting on.

“Did you mean it?”

Chat blinked. “What?”

“The letter.”

“Which-? M’lady, what are you-?”

“Dark Cupid. The  _letter_. The one you put in my locker.”

Chat froze.

“Did you mean it?”

She knew. There was no going back. They both knew the truth, and they were both going to have to see each other in school and act like they hadn’t seen the other do crazy shit like jumping into dinosaur mouths.

_Mon dieu, she jumped into a t-rex’s mouth._

“Every word.” Chat’s voice was deathly quiet. “And I still mean it. It’s still true. It’s always been true.”

A breath of air escaped Ladybug’s lips.

“Did you- Did you mean your letter?”

The word  _yes_  had already forced itself from her mouth before Chat was even done talking. Her voice nearly broke.

_No more secrets._

Ladybug finally turned to look at Chat.

She only said three syllables. One word - a name, actually. And she said it in the sort of soft way that only a person who was crumbling inside could - no matter whether the crumbling was from joy or pain. But that word snapped something inside of Chat. As soon as she spoke, Marinette Dupain-Cheng was clearer in Adrien’s mind than she had ever been: a leader, a fighter, a creator, a lover, an artist, a hero. A woman. A woman with flaws and pet-peeves and a dopey smile that made his insides gooey.

“Adrien?”

He was kissing her before she had the chance to take in a breath.

It took him a little too long to notice the akuma throwing fireballs across Paris.

 

 

TUMBLR LINK to this story: <https://capncrunchofthelovesquare.tumblr.com/post/174842281934/fluffy-ml-reveal-fic-reverse-crush-au>

\-- Find me on Tumblr at <https://capncrunchofthelovesquare.tumblr.com/>


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